


It Bothers Me Too

by riceballinthebasket



Series: Kyoru Week 2020 [5]
Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Day 6: Sunset, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Kyoru Week 2020, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riceballinthebasket/pseuds/riceballinthebasket
Summary: Kyo's been going to the roof more and more lately, reflecting. Time's running out. Confinement is near. Some day soon, he won't see Tohru or anyone anymore.TW: brief mention of suicide ideation.Part of Kyoru Week 2020 Day 6: Sunset.
Relationships: Honda Tohru/Sohma Kyou
Series: Kyoru Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968826
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	It Bothers Me Too

**Author's Note:**

> I'm okay. I just love writing angst. :) Let me know your thoughts on this short piece!  
> For Day 6: Sunset of Kyoru Week 2020 (though I'm weeks late on it). 
> 
> Takes place after the *spoiler for non-manga readers* sheet hug. 
> 
> TW: for talk of suicide ideation

It wasn’t often Kyo was on the roof before the sun set.

He usually at least tried to do his homework before going up to the roof and staring up at the sky. At some point, though, the ratio switched and now he was on the roof more than he was working on math or Japanese or English. God, he hated English class.

He sighed and brought his hands behind his head. The sunlight struck him in the face, so he squinted one eye as he noted the colors fading beneath the horizon. Burnt orange, bright red, and a dying yellow turning slowly to purple. Melding together until they would become the dark night sky.

Would he be able to see the night sky in The Room? He wondered.

There was no point, and Akito just as much as confirmed it. He would not beat Yuki. He would not win his freedom. He would spend his days behind bars, shrouded in darkness. Though he might be resolved to this fact now, it still terrified him. The terror came from extrapolating about how time would run, or rather how it would drag itself. The terror came from whether he would rather kill himself than live that sort of existence.

He sucked in a breath. In a way, _yeah_. Yeah, death would be easy. But for all he’s done—from his mother to Kyoko to even Shishou—he deserves to stay behind bars. If society wouldn’t punish him, he could count on the Sohmas to do it.

Even his supposed friends and relationships within the Zodiac were a sham. Was Haru cool? Yeah, he liked Haru. And Kagura was his best friend when he was younger because he had no one else. Momiji seemed to treat him like a human being, and Shigure was kind of his guardian when he wasn’t with Shishou. But when the time came, none of them would come for him. None of them would be able to do anything even if they wanted to, but Kyo was convinced they likely didn’t want to.

Sitting up, he shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. It was getting long. He should ask Tohru to cut it again; she did a pretty good job the last time, but the thought of burdening her for something even so much as a _haircut_ made shame pool in his gut. He scowled.

“Are you okay, Kyo-kun?”

He suppressed the urge to jump and turned to see Tohru’s eyes peering at him, her hands gripped tightly around the ladder. She pulled herself up, and Kyo’s cheeks reddened when he saw her dress bunch up around her upper thighs. He looked away. “Oh. Hey. Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she said, voice thick with something that pulled at his chest. When he looked at her again, she was sitting next to him. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

_Oh yeah._ The sunset. Light refracted and bended together as dusk turned ever closer to twilight. He sighed, shuddering it through his body down to the tips of his toes. Yeah. It really was pretty. He peered at her again. The last time they had been this close was when he hugged her through the sheet. It was stupid, really, that he did that. But to lend himself to her as comfort, to let her know she wasn’t stupid or a burden, was more important than a potential transformation. To feel her, in body and heart, was the most important thing in that moment.

When she met his eyes, he knew she was thinking of the same thing. She sputtered for a bit. “Uh, um, K-Kyo-kun, you’ve been coming up here a lot more!”

“Yeah,” he said. “I have.”

“Do you like watching sunsets?”

“I guess.”

She smiled. “I’m more of a sunrise person.”

“Ha, maybe I like both then,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. Even with Tohru here, he couldn’t bring himself to smile fully. His body slumped with heaviness. “So what are you doing here?”

Her cheeks were bright red. “I was, uh, I noticed you didn’t stick around right after dinner again. And I just wanted to know if you were okay.”

His chest fluttered. She had been saying a lot more crap like that lately. Okay, it wasn’t crap, but Kyo was uncomfortable calling it anything else. _No way. Please don’t, Tohru. Fucking don’t go any further._ “Yeah. I’m fine. Just—thinking.”

“Me too.” Her voice grew softer. “I’ve been thinking a lot too.”

Scoffing, he leaned back on his elbows, looking away from her and down at his orange t-shirt. “How many times have I told you that you not speaking your mind bothers me?”

“Maybe when you don’t speak yours, it bothers me too, Kyo-kun.”

With a sharp inhale of breath, he chanced a glance at her. Her brown eyes were a rippling pool of _something_ —passion? Determination?—staring into him. Her gaze wasn’t piercing, but rather enveloping, and he wanted to shrink away from it as much as he wanted to stay open to it. What could he say to that? She left him speechless.

“I—well—” he began.

She lifted her fist and, against the encompassing twilight sky, gave him a gentle knock on his head. His face lit up pink, and he was thankful for the mild darkness around him to disguise that. Her hand splayed out across his forehead, and she pushed his hair back. He fought the urge to tear his eyes away and stayed with her until she pulled her hand back to her side. “I wanted to try that,” she said.

That was it. _She was too fucking cute for her own good._ Kyo turned his head away. “Weirdo. It only works on you.”

“Does not!”

“Does too.”

He chanced another short glimpse at her. Her forehead ruffled, the sides of her lips twitching, he couldn’t help but laugh. “Ah, Tohru,” he said. “I’m only teasing.”

The few stars that could shine brighter than the city below them came out with their usual sheen. In the second that the stars premiered their nightly flash of light, Tohru broke the silence with “I like it when you do that to me.”

_Oh God._ He shook his head. He wouldn’t win with her. He didn’t want to. He only wanted to win so they could have had more time. He looked back up at the stars. Maybe in another life. A life he could dream about in his cage.


End file.
